Killer Bee Colony Found in Charleston

A colony of Africanized honey bees — the first to be found in South Carolina in 15 years — has been destroyed in Charleston County, according to officials with the Department of Plant Industry, a unit of Clemson University that carries out state regulatory functions.

State Apiary Inspector Brad Cavin said laboratory analysis of bee samples from the hive, conducted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service Carl Hayden Bee Research Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, showed “an almost 100 percent probability” that the bees were a hybrid of Africanized and European honey bees.

“This appears just to be a localized incident, but as a precaution we have depopulated the hive and are conducting a survey within a two-mile area to determine whether any Africanized honey bees remain,” Cavin said. “Depending on those results we’ll decide whether any additional efforts will be required.”

The Department of Plant Industry discovered the Africanized honey bee colony in a a routine survey, a part of the agency’s charge to protect South Carolina citizens and beekeepers from possible disease or parasite outbreak in the beekeeping industry.

This is the first discovery in South Carolina of the hybrid bees since 2001, when a colony of Africanized bees was discovered in the wing of an airplane in Greenville. That colony, too, was destroyed and no Africanized bees have been detected in the state since.

Africanized honey bees defend their nests more vigorously than European bees and swarm more often. They were first introduced in Brazil more than a half-century ago and migrated to North America in 1985, where they are largely confined to the southwestern states and southern Florida.

The Charleston County case differs from the 2001 discovery in that these Africanized honey bees were not wild, but were found in a managed hive.

“This is the first time to my knowledge that we have found them here in a managed colony,” Cavin said.

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